Fair Trade Facts
Posted by Doug on 19 Oct 2008 at 7:01 am | Tagged as: Coffee & K-Cup Portion Packs
Being immersed as we are in the Fair Trade movement, it’s all to easy to take some of the successes of Fair Trade for granted… at least until we back up a bit and take a look at the larger landscape. Then some of the numbers are a little bit startling.
Here’s a few of the facts that make us sit up and take notice that what we’re up to isn’t just a market, but a movement:
- More than 50% of the world’s coffee is grown on small, family-run farms.
- More than 800,000 farmers and their families sell their coffee through the Fair Trade register.
- Through the Fair Trade market, family farmers in Fair Trade cooperatives can earn three to five times more than farmers selling conventionally (depending on the market price of coffee, or the “C”.)
- Fair Trade Certified® coffee is the fastest growing segment of the $11 billion US specialty coffee trade.
- According to the journal Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability, 63 million Americans base their purchase decisions on how the products they consume affect the world.
- Imports of Fair Trade Certified green coffee have grown about 75% a year since 1999.
- More than 400 US college campuses serve Fair Trade coffee.
- For every daily coffee drinker in the United States there is a worker in the world who depends on coffee for his or her livelihood.
For all that, there’s still so much work to be done…
